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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Selective pressures and the evolution of alternative medicine

I wish I had thought of this one, but I didn’t. However, I never let a little thing like not having thought of an idea first to stop me from discussing it, and this particular idea is definitely worth expanding upon because (1) it’s interesting and (2) it combines two of my interests, alternative medicine […]

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Entertainment/culture Personal Politics

Get off my lawn, you whipper-snappers!

Friday morning while doing some work in my office, I was treated to a discussion by the two hosts of a morning radio talk show. The talk was apparently prompted by a rather odd website, ihateyoungpeople.com, which asks: We want you to create a video of yourself explaining what you hate the most about young […]

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Humor Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Global warming skeptics: Punk’d!

Hilarious. Even though I risk bringing back some of the anthropogenic global warming “skeptics” (in reality pseudoskeptics) here, this is too rich not to mention, because it reminds me of how advocates of all stripes of pseudoscience react, particularly advocates of alternative medicine, most of whom wouldn’t recognize a well-designed study if it bit them […]

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Computers and social media Humor

Wow, I really need me one of these!

Given the general level of intelligence and erudition of commenters here, rare would be the need for a product such as this: (Fortune Magazine) — Internet veterans have long complained about the steady erosion of civility — and worse, intelligence — in online discourse. Initially the phenomenon seemed to be a seasonal disorder. It occurred […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

Orac gets e-mail: Woo infiltration at Ohio State University?

Orac gets e-mail from time to time. This time around, a person working at The Ohio State University writes about a disturbing incident there demonstrating yet more evidence that academic medical centers are having increasing difficulty distinguishing between evidence-based medicine (which they should champion) and non-evidence-based medicine, which they should not. This e-mail comes from […]